Pages tagged "Topic primaries and voter choice"

The 2016 primary marked the third election cycle of statewide races when California employed the “Top Two” method, in which candidates from all parties for State Assembly, State Senate, US House, and this year, Barbara Boxer’s open US Senate seat, appeared on the same ballot. FairVote will be providing more extensive analysis of this unique system’s outcomes in the coming weeks, but we wanted to share a few key findings now.

On Tuesday, May 24th, voters across the state of Texas were asked to return to the polls for several runoff elections. Turnout was dismal with less than 4 percent and of registered voters participating--a 20.3 percent drop from the primary election that was held on March 1st. Texas should adopt ranked choice voting for primary elections to replace costly, low-turnout runoffs like the one held Tuesday.

As of May 3rd, 2016, more than 75% states have held either presidential primaries or caucuses. FairVote has compiled the number of votes casts in state primaries for each candidate to this point, as well as the reported number of votes in state caucuses--though caucus numbers are less reliable than primary elections. Here is summary analysis of voter state presidential primary election turnout to this point in the nomination process.

With just 82 days remaining until the Republican Convention, Ted Cruz and John Kasich have publicly discussed their plan to launch a coordinated opposition effort to Donald Trump in upcoming state primaries. The idea is to consolidate Cruz and Kasich supporters behind the most competitive alternative to Trump in each of the remaining states, rather than splitting the anti-Trump vote between the two candidates.

For two decades, the Commission on Presidential Debates has excluded every candidate from the general election presidential and vice-presidential debates but two: the nominees of the Republican and Democratic Parties. On April 13th, FairVote filed an amicus brief in support of Level the Playing Field and other plaintiffs to change this exclusionary rule and help open the debates to more competition.

Today, April 12th, Alabama will hold costly runoff elections for the District 1 and District 7 seats on the Alabama State Board of Education, as well as several Circuit Court Judge nominations. These runoffs are required when no candidate receives a majority of votes in the primary elections, which took place on March 1st.

I wanted to highlight a new proposal: the “ Public Primary.” First proposed to us last year by Chad Peace of the Independent Voter Project as an “all independent primary,” the idea has taken more shape in the succeeding months. Chad now calls it a Public Primary, as do we.

The very fact that voters are segregated by party affiliation to choose nominees means the emerging candidate pool will naturally have viewpoints that skew to their party’s more vocal base. Whether it is a local mayoral election or a statewide senate race, candidates hoping to secure their party’s nomination often veer to the extreme.